The Moz Blog

Gaming Social Media Signals For Fun And Profit

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community.The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not
reflect the views of Moz.

About two weeks ago I gave a talk at Pubcon titled, "Global Social Media Signals For SEO". During the end of the talk I briefly mentioned several techniques used to "game" social signals. Afterwards it was apparent that many were interested to learn more about gaming these signals. So without further ado, I would like to talk more about how to game social media signals.

Oh wait a second! It looks like I got a little ahead of myself, before we go any further I think we should try to answer one question:

Why should anyone try to game social media signals?

If you are a giant dork (like moi), then gaming social media signals can be fun! However, if you have friends in the real world then I would suggest you try and identify actionable goals with the signals you are gaming, otherwise this might turn into a waste of time. Some actionable goals would be to push content with in networks, increase user "authority", or even game outside channels like search results.

Quick note about, gaming search results with social signals: Social media signals for search are still in its infancy. Over the last several years we have seen the engines employ a variety of different techniques to integrate social signals. However, each of these have had fluctuating significance. Therefore, I would advise that you integrate social signals as a part of a much larger marketing plan that also includes all of the fundamentals of SEO. Social media is not replacing SEO, it's making it better.

Get Inside Your Target's Head (psychology)

Your target here is your audience, and it's important that you understand what they are motivated by to get them to act. Most economists will call these "incentives". However, most of the time we aren't using direct calls to action in social media, so these are more likely akin to dangling a worm in-front of a fish. We aren't telling the fish to bite; we are hoping that the worm looks good enough for the fish to bite on its own.

One of the most well known psychologists of the 20th century on the topic of motivation was Abraham Maslow. Maslow is widely known for his "hierarchy of needs" which he first published in a paper in 1943. Here you can see that Maslow has classified needs into 5 sections: Physiological, Safety, Love/belonging, Esteem, and Self-actualization. Despite the fact that each of these sections clearly articulate an individual need within the human experience, I tend to disagree with the concept a hierarchy because it implies that each are separate of the others. For example I might want self-actualization and crave a cheeseburger at the same time. However, understanding Maslow's theory can help you position your content and your sharing strategy in a way that aligns with an individual's basic needs.

A much more recent study [PDF] published by the Journal of Marketing Research looked at what types of content are more likely to go "viral". They concluded that content that invoked high physiological arousal was more likely to be shared or engaged.

Leveraging The Right Content

Recently Matt McGee showed us data that reveals that images draw more Facebook interactions than any other posting type. Remember that interactions aren't the same as content consumption. For example Its clear that video consumption on the web is constantly rising. But the nature of social media relies on metrics that tend to have quick shelf life. In other words, users might watch a video or read a blog post, but when done they are ready to move on to the next piece of content, not click "like" or +1. Images are quick and can be consumed without a click through, which keeps the user close to the "share", "retweet", "like" buttons.

While images are ruling Facebook, animated images are killing it on Google+. Some of you might find them annoying, but it has become increasingly apparent that these zany GIFs are very popular with "shares" and "+1"'s. Just a few days ago I got over 200 shares in less than 12 hours with an animated GIF. Check out GIFBin and browse the top rated or top tagged for animated GIFs that will work well with in Google+.

If blog posts are your cup of tea, you should learn to embed viral factors to increase on page sharing. Things like uniform image sizes and emphasizing white space can motivate more social clicks.

Images (both animated and not) can get a lot of traction, but other content types can be just as successful. The trick is finding (or creating) what works. What I typically do is troll other networks like reddit or digg looking for content that is already trending. Then I re-post on other networks. I used to call this "Retweet Bait", but it can be applied anywhere that inner-network sharing is available.

Identifying The Right Signals

Share/Spread Signals:

Retweets

Facebook shares

Google+ shares

Authority Signals:

Relationship ratios.

Mentions

Inbound activity

Simple Quantitative Signals:

Google +1

Facebook likes.

"Up/Down votes"

Discussion Signals:

Comment threads

In stream mentions.

Share/Spread Signals - Gaming these signals can help not only distribute content to the widest audience, but will also put your name in-front of other users, increasing relationship metrics and improving authority. If you are a "breaking" news publisher you are going to want to focus on these metrics to influence Google's recent freshness update and trip the query deserves freshness signal. For best results you are going to want to use clear straightforward calls to action like, please retweet, "please share", or any other appropriate variant.

Simple Quantitative Signals - These have got to be the simplest social signals available. They are great for measuring content quality and act as a baseline for other metrics. You can easily game these by including clear straight forward calls to action. "Please support us by liking this post!" If you are using WordPress, you are going to want to check out the WP Greet Box it allows you to include a custom call to action above or below the post based on the referring URL. So if a user comes to your blog from Google+ you can include a call to action similar to: "Hey there! If you enjoy this post please +1 it!"

Authority Signals - Search engines and social networks are constantly trying to judge authority. These signals are vital to having strength in social media. The most obvious authority metric is relationship ratios on asymmetrical networks like Twitter. With asymmetrical networks we can judge authority [PDF via] by looking at the ratio to following and followers. Facebook recently added the subscribe feature which will give the ability to use this same type of analysis. Authority can also be weighted by inter-network mentions and even inbound activity.

Discussion Signals - When users comment on your content they are effectively sending a signal that your content holds value. Content that starts dialog generally also gets shared. To game this signal you are going to want to ask open-ended questions that inspire debate or dialog.

Make The Signals Pop

Getting a handful of Facebook likes or +1's can be a good start. But to see real traction you have to make the signals "pop". It's hard to tell exactly what is needed to get each signal to register on the various networks, but one starting place is taking a second look at Facebook's EdgeRank. EdgeRank is responsible for pushing the most popular content with in each Facebook social stream. From what we know, Facebook is using three main factors to influence EdgeRank:

Affinity Score - This is a relationship metric that measures how close you are to others. If a user visits another's page often, or sends them multiple messages the score is higher. If a user has a high affinity score with another they are more likely to show up in their social stream. You can game this score by getting users to regularly visit your Facebook page.

Edge weight - Every time a user engages content with in the social stream, the content is given an "edge" over other less popular content. Comments, likes, and shares all count towards "edge". You can game this metric [PDF] by asking open ended questions with an inherent bias. Here's an example: "How badly do you think the republicans will do in this election?" Democrats will "like" (or +1) this question because of the inherent bias. Republicans will comment on it, because of the inherent bias. As a result we are gaming two of the needed metrics to influence Edge weight.

Time decay - Fresher content is more likely to be included in the social stream. The best way to game this metric is to develop evergreen content that you can re-share periodically.

While EdgeRank is exclusive to Facebook, other networks have similar systems of ranking internal content. It is clear that Google+ is using something analogous to EdgeRank, but with two main differences: Google+ doesn't filter content in the social stream, it just reorders it. Also, it appears that Google+ doesn't put as much weight on affinity as Facebook does.

Kitchen Sink Strategy

In marketing (and life) I often execute what I call the kitchen sink strategy. Basically this entails throwing "everything but the kitchen sink" at a problem and seeing what works. Gaming social signals are no different. Which is why when I promote content I try to include as many of the tactics described above as possible.

For example, not long ago we launched a small site to test various marketing strategies. When it came time to test Google+ I wanted to attack the signals from all corners. Therefore, I embedded the OpenGraph image meta tag to pull a large version of our logo into the social stream. Then I designed a question with direct calls to action embedded into multiple choice answers. Coaxing the user to engage with multiple choice questions is an example of manipulating inherent cognitive biases. The result? We get basic feedback about a design and gamed Google+'s social stream with all the elements needed to make the signals "pop".

Keep Pushing The Limits

Social media signals are gaining significance every day. However, as information sharing changes and the various social channels rise and fall in popularity, there is no set methodology you should follow now or in the future. Instead, it is important to constantly test new strategies and ideas. Good luck gaming!

About joehall —
@JoeHall's work has garnered the attention of some of the biggest technology publications in the world, including white papers from MIT and The Department of Homeland Security.

77 Comments

Just one brief side consideration about Gifs. If Google+ is essentially driven by people like us (marketers and web addicts), that means that whatever progress of the web we have seen, we still are kids in our souls and loving these so XX century animation :)...

Great post Joe, and really happy to see you posting here on SEOmoz!

I especially appreciate your quick note saying that Social is not replacing SEO, just making it better. Good call for people like us that tend to be blinded by any new bright shining object :)

Good article Joe, I follow a lot of your posts over at Google+. I agree with every thing you say I think this is one area where it will be trickey for search engines to incorporate share metrics into the algo where people have clearly gamed the system.

I mean you can rip a video from YouTube, embed it on your site then tell people, "hey if you love the video hit plus one on my site or like it" ect ect, the users then like the content and the site which has embedded the content gets the authority. Look at some of the biggest tech sites around they all do this. It does not show that they have produced great content all they have done is gamed the system with 2 lines of content and a video from YouTube!.

But yeah the wording of your posts, you need to think up smart ways where you can really generate the interaction but also help your social property gain ground yet not sound too spammy at the same time, I mean ive been doing things on Facebook like "Hit like if you are partying tonight." on a friday afternoon or you can mix it up to get engagement.

But yeah I 100% agree images are still king, and cool quick quotes people can easily share work wonders too...

I was a bit nervous when I first read the title of this - thought you might be talking about some dirty tricks to boost social signals. But, I'm glad I gave it a chance, this is such easy to follow advice, I'll definitely be thinking about these tips when I'm getting my social on in future.

Glad you found it helpful! The "dirtier" the "tricks" get, the harder they are to scale and strategize around, so its smarter in my opinion to develop strategies that fit the right context with calculated delivery like in the tips in this post. Thanks for commenting!

This is a great post, very comprehensive. I for one have been glad to see the animated gifs going viral in G+, as I've always been a fan. Joe you just gained a new regular reader for your own blog as well as any future moz guest posts from you.

Great insight into social. I too am not sure this is for the greater good. There are many people that keep things private and a must for being social will possibly bring more junk to others just as other marketing efforts continue to do.

A nice article about how to behave in different platforms. I've read most of the comments above and will say that Joe knows how to make it and the number of comments and ongoing hot discussion. I trust you :)))

I have one little issue with animated gifs, a lot of smart phones just don't show them. And as we all know, there is big chunk of people who use mobile devices to brows social media sites.

I also don't understand why some people are so butt hurt about Manslow's Hierarchy being used in this post. We are marketers! We market other people's businesses as well as our own. We need to understand our target audience to be able to identify what will work best when reaching out to them.

Great post, really enjoyed it However I have one small issue. I get a little irked by the number of marketers and seo's that try to apply or compare marketing tactics with elements taken from pyschology - such as Maslows hierarchy of needs.You referenced it completely out of context and I think you gravely misunderstood its application. You might want self actualisation and a hamburger at the same time and that's ok. Maslow was talking about a heirarchy of 'needs' not a heirarchy of 'desires and wishes'. The correct take on this would be to look at the difference between wanting self actualisation and 'eating' to survive. you would seek food before you would seek self actualisation hence the heirarchy. Maslows reference to food was on a generic survival basis and not in reference to a society on the way to self actualisation who have the luxury of choosing when and where to have a hamburger.

So I think you should be careful about dismissing such a powerful, well repected and important school of pyschology because you' don't like the heirarchy' idea.Sorry to be pedantic but I read this kind of 'pop' psychology everyday and it winds me up. Apart from that its a great post Joe

Thanks for reading my post! Its funny that you hold Maslow in such high esteem and Keenan above considered it simplistic, and that my answer to both of you is the same: I am not a psychologist I am a marketer.

When I was a freshman in college I had the option to take Psychology 101, but I took Spanish instead because the professor was very attractive. So if you want to criticize my misunderstanding of Maslow, thats fine because I didn't learn any Spanish that semester either. :)

Haha brilliant! I had exactly the same thing with my French teacher. I learnt about 3 phrases all year.

Hope you didn't take it too personally, like I said the post is a great post in itself :) and I'd definitely keep any eye out for your future writings. I don't necessarily hold Maslow in such high esteem I've just seen his heirarchy banded around in marketing and seo presentations left, right and centre and it always frustrates me how its used/understood incorrectly. I know I'm being a pedant and so I'll make up for it by emphasising once again how good i thought your post was.I'm genuinely not trying to be hyper critical, just giving feedback.

I really like the post, especially because it's what I'm trying to do in my company, creating a great collaboration with the social media manager. I mean, SEO and social media are not mutually exclusive, but they can collaborate together to build something special, spreading it all over the web in a constructive way.

Thanks for the other tips. I believe in the power of images, but never thought about animated GIFs as powerful tool to create awesome content.

You make some very interesting points Joe, especially around buying social signals. Everyone can see the sites out there that you can buy +1s or Likes, you have to ask, how "real" are those signals going to be? If you're buying from a network of cloned accounts, the actual weighting you'll get from that is going to be easily detectable and fairly low. On the other hand, why do you need to buy social signals at all? Especially when you can use free tools like this: www.plus1exchange.net

Thanks for reading my post! I want to make one clarification though, in my slides from Pubcon when I mention buying "+1" I was talking about the inherent risk involved with buying social signals. And that if you choose to go that route you need to isolate your self from that risk by backing up the metrics with a solid content strategy. I am not advocating buying social media metrics or signals.

Maslow's Hiearchy, really? I don't know if I can take another internet marketer pulling unproven, simplistic, and - sorry to say - outdated psychology. In the end, I'm not sure this could be considered "gaming" social signals, but to each his or her own.

I would think that intelligent, analytical people would just un-circle and un-follow you when you try to bait them into retweeting or +1ing something. It's transparent, but your milage may (and seems to) vary based on your follower demographic. I'd value 1000 retweets from people who retweet "retweet this" kinds of posts just as I would 100 negative or spammy comments.

Imagine Rand or a brand like Southwest/Toyota doing some of the things you suggest. If anything, it would probably have a negative impact on their bottom line. If your goal is to have a high klout score and to be an expert on animated gifs, though - by all means, proceed.

A fairly brutal response, I think the aim of this post was to give some ideas to those individuals (who are not in the fortunate position of Toyota) that want to generate some kind of social authority.

But my issue with social signals is that there is not a shred of solid evidence for any substantial long-term impact on SEO and any other kind of gain is speculative and heavily reliant on luck. I'll stick to SEO for the more measurable side of online marketing.

Your right that there isn't any evedence of long term gains for SEO. But its clear the engines are using these signals. You might want to take a look at this post where both Google and Bing addmit to using facebook and twitter data in 2010.

Also please click on the first link in my post where you can see slides from my Pubcon talk, in it you will see I cite examples of search engines using social media signals from as far back as 2004.

Apologies for coming across overly brash in my last comment, I just re-read it and hope you didn't take it the wrong way!

I have read the post you mentioned and cited it on a number of occasions. However for me as a part owner of an agency, until social signals can boost organic traffic to a level that has an impact on revenue it's not worth the time. I mean, is it possible to justify spending SEO time on Tweeting, +1ing and Liking when ultimately it is link signals that are growing the businesses that we deal with.

Although I do admit that there's definitely a need to anticipate the role of social signals (and everything else in SEO).

I think the points that you raise here are the types of things SEOs need to constantly ask themselves going forward. Because right now you might not find value in the signals, but if you continue testing and start to see rising value over time, then it would make sense to devote more time on signals to client work.

I drink coffee from a tea cup every morning because I like the way it feels in my hand, and it reminds me of someone special.

If a complete stranger approached me on the street and handed me a chart of Maslow's Hiearchy, and I had no idea who Maslow is, I would still see marketing value in it. Because I am a marketer, Is Maslow's Hiearchy unproven and simplistic? I have no idea, it might be, but to me it doesn't really matter because I am not a psychologist, I am a marketer, and I can use "unproven, simplistic" psychology to organize my marketing efforts because I drink coffee out of a tea cup, and that works just fine as well.

Internet marketing is a strange bird. Traditional marketing tries to connect the audience with a product, or subject's perceived value. Unfortunately, Search engines and other networks that rely on large scale analysis have a hard time drawing the connections of perceived value. Therefore as internet marketers it is our job to help them make those connections by ensuring that the signals that matter are triggered. Because as every experienced SEO knows, even the best content sometimes never gets linked to on its own.

Oh no, it wasn't to personal at all! I am glad you commented. :) I think you are right in that it can be unproductive, but not all the time. I think that is the hardest part of working in SEO/internet marketing is understanding what works where, when, and how much is needed.

Whats your reasoning behind social media not making SEO better? Im presuming that you mean it will have no benefit for SEO?

Would it be fair to say that you dont believe Google uses social signals to help determine the quality of content. Using social user engadgment as an indicator of a contents relevancy to its given subject matter?

I think a lot of people are confusing 'social media to improve search' with 'social media to improve SEO'. I agree that it can help with the former, as long as it's not made open for abuse, but in terms of the latter it makes things a lot harder.

This was my original comment about how social media is hurting SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/social-media-saving-democracy-the-internet-and-google-too#jtc158365

The whole concept is that overlaying a social graph helps the engines rank content with more authentic signals. Because, as we all know, the link graph can easily be manipulated. Of course as I have shown here so can the social graph, but its a fair assumption that it is easier to buy a few hundred links then it is to get a few hundred authoritative social "votes".

As for how social media makes the practice of SEO better, thats a whole other post that I am sure has already been written numerous times!

'Because, as we all know, the link graph can easily be manipulated. Of course as I have shown here so can the social graph, but its a fair assumption that it is easier to buy a few hundred links then it is to get a few hundred authoritative social "votes".'

Well, that depends on how authority is determined. If it's determined based on followers, retweets etc., then we're moving more towards a Klout-style system and paid followers and retweets will no doubt grow. It also depends on how accurately search engines can determine whether buzz is positive or negative; current public methods aren't very advanced and prone to lots of errors.

"As for how social media makes the practice of SEO better, thats a whole other post that I am sure has already been written numerous times!"

I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of some articles for that. Short of using social media to ask people to link to your pages from theirs, and getting low-quality social profile backlinks, I'm still not seeing how social media makes SEO better. It seems to hinder more than it helps at the moment.

Engagement and relationship buiding is a part of organic link building and an inherent part of social media. Engagement and relationship buiding is also a part of creating a well established brand. Well established brands tend to attract more links and rank higher. If those aren't all added SEO bonuses I am not sure what is.

I can see many SEO's wasting time in social media, which is why I included the disclaimer in the post (and highlighted it). But outside of wasting time, I can't see how it hinders SEO.

Relationships can be formed via on-site commenting/discussions and forums too - and generally lead to better and more permanent links. If you become known to a blog owner via commenting on their site and/or writing about them, they are usually more likely to link to you than if you drop them a couple of comments via social media. Stuff that starts on social media often stays on social media.

Since you didn't read my other comment, I'll post the relevant bits here. Here are some of the ways I believe social media is hindering SEO:

People link to each other's social profiles more than their websites (reducing number of potential backlinks)

Increasing use of Facebook commenting on external websites reduces places you can include your URL

Social sharing buttons and plugins slow sites down

Rankings can favour people's social profiles above their own personal websites

People often like/comment posts on Facebook rather than heading to the original source of the article and taking the discussion (including visits, clicks to other articles & potential backlinks) there.

Increased bounce rates from things like StumbleUpon and Twitter links - people often only read the one article they've been linked to.

Highly popular Twitter users (e.g. SmashingMag) frequently take whole sites down by linking to a single page in a tweet.

All of your points are awesome and valid! But I don't think they are good examples of how social hinder's SEO, but rather how the landscape is changing and putting more of an emphasis on doing what marketers have always done.

Prior to the current influx of "social sharing", links were far easier to get. Now that the linkerati is getting smaller the link economy has shifted towards content that gets noticed the most. Thus the need for social media even more.

And yes you can build amazing relationships on site, but currently people go to social media for that, because thats what it is designed for.

This post deserves a thumb up and a comment for the Truffle Shuffle GIF alone.

But, more on topic, I can understand how follower ratios influence a user's perception of authority/celebrity status, but is there any body of research on the topic demonstrating that search engines or social networks give extra weight to those with high follower to followed ratios?

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong and you're focusing on attracting retweets/followers/shares/etc based on the user's perception of authority and not necessarily that it's a mechanical signal that this person knows their shiz.

"but is there any body of research on the topic demonstrating that search engines or social networks give extra weight to those with high follower to followed ratios?"

No I do not believe there is. The PDF I linked to in the post points to a recent study on authority in social networks. In it they rely heavly on relationship ratios. But no, the engines have not come out and said, one way or another how they are judging authority....because of that, I like the Kitchen Sink strategy because it means that you are covering all your bases.

Awesome post, Joe! I especially dig the Kitchen Sink strategy. It makes it fun/easy for friends and followers, you get great feedback, and most importantly you can get a decent amount of social authority based on the number of interactions. Im going to try this!!

I really enjoyed this one and no matter what the guys say about your use of psychological research, I think it's got to be a good thing that we try to use other disciplines to try and get a better understanding of what users are doing and how we can get them to do more for us!

You might want to take a look at this post where both Google and Bing addmit to using facebook and twitter data in 2010. The big question is how much weight is given to each signal. Which is something that you should constaly be testing to get a feel for.